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“Maybe things cratered for himafterhe rented the house,” Jacobson says.
Jacobson is trying to remain calm, but Ahearn has clearly knocked him off-balance. Or at least spun him around a little bit.
Makes two of us,I think.
Jimmy once said that a really good cross-examination is boxing without blood. I suddenly feel the urge to see if I’m the one who might be bleeding.
Ahearn is seated casually on the end of his table.
“High school depression really has nothing to do with this case, or the charges against you, does it, Mr. Jacobson?” Ahearn says.
“I didn’t say it did.”
“More of an implied-type thing,” Ahearn says.
“Objection, Your Honor,” I say. “It sounds as if Mr. Ahearn has jumped the gun here on his summation.”
“Overruled,” Judge Prentice says. “I’ll allow it.”
Just like that, Ahearn’s voice is rising, to preacher level, and even though he is in the middle of the room, it’s still as if he’s managed to crowd Rob Jacobson.
“There was no suicide attempt, was there, Mr. Jacobson?” Ahearn says. “You’re just putting an issue as serious as suicide into play in the same cynical way you tried to put depression. Isn’t that right?”
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that!”Ahearn snaps at him.“You’ve spent your whole life just lying to stay in practice. Isn’t that right, Mr. Jacobson?”
“Objection!” I say.
“Sustained,” Prentice says. “You’re all the way to the line, Mr. Ahearn.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Rob Jacobson says.
“Of course you are,” Ahearn says.
I’m hopeful that he might be done.
Just not quite yet, unfortunately.
“Just one last question,” Ahearn says, almost as if it’s an afterthought.
He walks over to his table, moves some papers around, picks the top page up, studies it, nods. It might be something important, or it might be a grocery list. What he wants to do is heighten the drama, before whatever is coming next.
He puts the paper back down and turns back to the witness stand.
“Isn’t it true that not long before the murders you entered into a nondisclosure agreement with Mitch Gates?”
“Objection!” I shout, once more before I’m out of my chair.
“I guess what we’d all like to know is just what you needed Mitch Gates to keep silentabout.” Ahearn shouts over me, and over the sound of Judge Jackson Prentice III’s gavel,“Or is that something else you’ve conveniently forgotten, you son of a bitch?”
Now Kevin Ahearn crosses the line.
Happily.
One Hundred Four
I AM SITTING ONmy back deck with Dr. Ben Kalinsky, the two of us sipping red wine, Rip stationed between Ben’s chair and mine, snoring.
